


Uneven When You're Down

by GotTheSilver



Category: Lost Boys (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Flashbacks, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 15:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21017768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GotTheSilver/pseuds/GotTheSilver
Summary: Michael looks like his grandpa, that’s the first thing David notices.  How could he not?  Even after all these years the rejection still stings, still sparks a fire in his stomach that makes him want to rip someone, anyone, apart.Even before the bloodsucking part of his personality got brought to the fore, David wasn’t a good man; he was a greaser, a boy with a switchblade, the man you didn’t let your daughter or sister go out with.  That was who he was, who he’d been made to be by the fist of his father and the silent tears of his mother.That was how Max found him, carving up the face of someone who’d been too damn stupid to walk away from a fight that David wasn’t going to lose.





	Uneven When You're Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PineapplePrincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PineapplePrincess/gifts).

Michael looks like his grandpa, that’s the first thing David notices. How could he not? Even after all these years the rejection still stings, still sparks a fire in his stomach that makes him want to rip someone, anyone, apart.

Even before the bloodsucking part of his personality got brought to the fore, David wasn’t a good man; he was a greaser, a boy with a switchblade, the man you didn’t let your daughter or sister go out with. That was who he was, who he’d been made to be by the fist of his father and the silent tears of his mother.

That was how Max found him, carving up the face of someone who’d been too damn stupid to walk away from a fight that David wasn’t going to lose.

Grandpa—William, as David knew him—hadn’t been like David. Got into fights to pass the time, but he’d never been vicious, never been the person causing real harm. Something about that had appealed to David, it had been so different to what he’d known. It made him wonder if he could be different, if he could change.

But then Max happened and David knew what was inside him all along. Knew he could never be fixed. Not by anyone.

*

William was meant to be his first kill, but instead David had been weak, going to Max and asking, begging, for his first kill to be someone else. Begging for the chance to let William be part of their family.

Instead, William turned a knife on him and David felt his fangs coming through, saw William recoil.

“What in the goddamn hell are you?”

“You’re not stupid,” David said. “You know what I am, what I’m offering. What you could be, if you wanted.”

“You’re outta your mind if you think that I would ever want that. You come back here and it’ll be the last thing you do.”

“William—”

The sound of a chair smashing had filled the air, and before David could register what had happened, Wiliam was brandishing a piece of wood in David’s face. “Yeah,” he said, holding it up. “I know what you are. My whole family knew things like you existed, but I never wanted that life. You get one chance to live. One. This is it.”

“I leave—”

“And I won’t hunt you.”

*

Max hated the deal David had made, but had simply cupped David’s face and shook his head, muttering under his breath about sentiment.

About how he’d train that out of David.

And he did, for the most part.

*

After she meets Michael, Star comes back and tells David that Michael and his family have come to Santa Carla to stay with Michael’s grandpa and that’s when David puts it together.

He could have Star kill him, leave the body for William to find, but—.

In the years that have gone by, David’s researched the family. William hadn’t been lying on that day, they’d been vampire hunters, but the legacy had stopped with William. In his more idle moments, David wonders if that had anything to do with him. If maybe William never wanted to risk going up against him.

David’s never really come to a solid conclusion.

What David does know, is that the worst thing for a family like that, is one of their own being turned.

And that’s when he decides to have Michael drink Max’s blood.

*

“What do you want from life?” William asked as they sat on the beach, passing a bottle between them. “You can’t only want this.”

“I like this,” David said. “I get by.”

William had been silent for a long moment. “I don’t believe you.”

“Believe what you want,” David responded, stubbing his cigarette out on the wood deck. “I don’t care.”

“I do,” William said. “You could have more than this.”

“You’re the only one who thinks so,” David said, the bruises on his side still aching, a gift from his father before he left the house.

“Get out of this town and more might believe it.”

“No one gets out of this town.”

*

David wonders, sometimes, if Michael’s blood would taste the same as William’s blood. If there’s some kind of genetic component to it. He’s never paid attention before, but with them, if he killed them both, he’d want to know.

Star finds him staring at old photos of William and tries to hide her laughter. Asks if that’s why he’s doing this, if he’s trying to replace an old lover.

He and William never—it wasn’t right, back then. The world still doesn’t think it’s right, but they talk about it now. They didn’t talk about it back then. David’s watched the world change from the shadows and thinks about whether being human in the world today would’ve made a difference to how his life has turned out.

It’s doubtful.

All it takes is throwing old takeout across the room and Star leaves, a spiteful look on her face as if David doesn’t know where she’ll be going.

*

“That girl was giving you the eye,” William said, unsteady on his feet from the liquor, kicking up dirt on the track.

“You’re gonna have to narrow it down.”

William squinted at him. “You’re not that popular.”

“I could be. Few less fights, few more hours of work, I’d be a catch.”

“That what you want? The simple life?”

“Maybe,” David said, flicking his switchblade. “In another time I could have that.”

“Not this one?”

“Doesn’t seem to be on the cards. And who’d want to live with a mess like me?”

“Some dames like a challenge.”

“That what I am?”

“Politest way I could put it.”

*

In the end, being killed is almost a relief. The things William made driving holes through his heart. There’s a sick kind of poetry in it, David thinks.

His life has been a series of bad choices, and he should’ve known that going after Michael would seal his fate.

But then, maybe, that’s what he wanted.

*

“Think we’ll be friends until the end?” David asked, ice pressed against the bruise forming on his cheekbone.

“Until one of us dies,” William said. “I can guarantee it.”


End file.
